HI DAN. Come on in. Who told ya about us?
Howdy Ray. Good to see you posting here too.
Hey Coot, I don't "hate" any 'fly geeks'.
I just have respect for the ones who mainly enjoy their sport for themselves without a care in the world about other fishers. It's a great recreational sport and I like it a lot. But the ones who prefer to have people watching them flycast and then figuratively look down their nose at non-fly fishers (Oh ya - there are a few of those types around), then yuk. It seems their day just wouldn't be complete if they didn't get to demonstrate their casting prowess to some onlooking fishermen. The funniest case of that scenario I've ever seen was last year from my jetsled. I was fishing with Jeffhead, Dan S, and Osprey on the Cowlitz up by Blue Creek. On one of our trips back to the top, across from the Blue Creek cluster****, there across from that mess on the south side of the river is 2 fly geeks spey casting in this jumble for winter steelhead. One of the guys was very good at casting the thing; it was 'art'. But in that scene I would have bet my sled he was there to catch 'gratifying looks' his way more than to catch fish! I parked my sled a few yards downstream and got out a bag of old golf balls and a 3 wood and whacked a few long ones. Art! Not. ... BTW, I tried Gizmo's 28 ft. long
, ok 14' spey rod, casting it from a shallow waded postion on the NF Lewis for summer steelhead one time, on one of the larger holes. I'm a husky tall guy and have no problem casting the huge thing; even one handed on medium distance casts - it just isn't a pleasing experience to me. That it is for you and others is completely fine with me; I just can't figure out why, but that's my prob. And I haven't done it long enough yet to be coming across as dissing guys who like spey rods (please excuse it sounding like that - it's really the latter of those 2 'tudes described above that I was dissin). For me it's sort of like not understanding guys who like to be horse whipped by girls wearing skimpy black leather type outfits - I shouldn't knock that scene without trying it first, right? But I prefer comfortable and reasonble things in life - usually.
...
Now I'm just kidding around with this following exagerated analogy, so lighten up guys ....> Back to that 28' rod .
@--------------------------------------o~~~~~~~~
If GLoomis, Sage, Scott, Winston, Orvis, Shakespear
, Lamiglass, or whoever put out a super ultra light 28 ft. spey rod, we wouldn't even need a reel with it. Just tie a 15' leader on the end of it. On medium rivers just hang it out over the other side of the river and slowly drop the the rodtip down stream and then swing it over to your side. You likely could cover the tailout from the top of some holes with the thing. When a steelhead hits the fly hard as usual, you may even feel it. With this no-reel long limber rod it would just flex and follow the fish around, quickly tiring it out. When ready, just lift on the superspey firmly and it would fling the fish a few yards into the woods for ya. ... For big rivers you would probably want their 35' one piece version (comes with it's own roofrack carrier). ... For the spey purists who want to fish smaller steelhead rivers on rare occasions, they could use the smaller 28 footer (they could only afford 2 of them at over $4,000 apiece), by stepping back into the woods a few yards to fish the narrower slots there. Got it all covered. And what an angling accomplishment! ... Just being silly now - but when I have a dream about spey casting, that's the dream I have.
RT
[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: RT ]